Not a Soul Was Dancing to Sabrina Carpenter and Madonna at Coachella

Plenty has been written about phones, but holy shit, hardly a single person was dancing when Sabrina Carpenter brought out Madonna at Coachella. Close to the stage and in the back row, the livestream showed thousands and thousands of phone lights being held still perfectly still.

No doubt everyone wanted to film an amazing concert, probably the kind where the crowd went wild and clapped along. Except everyone was above the actual labor of putting on a show, even when Madonna and her gospel choir joined their hands in the direction of the audience. Do they never clap? Are they all — all of them — just not the clapping kind?

The problem doesn’t extend festival wide. Both the boomers that saw Bruce Springsteen join John Densmore and Turnstile’s sea of young pit brawlers all found their own version of Coachella euphoria. It can be a good festival. But that particular audience kind of sucks.

Even pop stars know it sucks. Last year Sabrina Carpenter sounded open to banning phones at all her shows, though she added that following through might “honestly piss off my fans.” And so the festival meeting between two iconic stars had the flatness of an award show ceremony performance. Not even a good award show. I mean like the Grammys. 

Look, the world is full of pain and suffering. This is not important in the grand scheme. But I heard a pretty good beat drop after “Heaven help me” and the crowd shot showed tens of thousands of phone lights holding deathly still. There’s no wrong way to listen to music, except this.

Sabrina Carpenter helped welcome Madonna back to Coachella after 20 years, with the pair performing “Like a Prayer” together. The last time the Queen of Pop appeared on the musical festival’s lineup was on April 30, 2006. (🎥: YouTube / Coachella) #sabrinacarpenter #coachella

♬ original sound – Entertainment Tonight – Entertainment Tonight